▪ Abstract Well-being is a complex construct that concerns optimal experience and functioning. Current research on well-being has been derived from two general perspectives: the hedonic approach, which focuses on happiness and defines well-being in terms of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance; and the eudaimonic approach, which focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning. These two views have given rise to different research foci and a body of knowledge that is in some areas divergent and in others complementary. New methodological developments concerning multilevel modeling and construct comparisons are also allowing researchers to formulate new questions for the field. This review considers research from both perspectives concerning the nature of well-being, its antecedents, and its stability across time and culture.

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On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-Being

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(08)61690-6.pdf

Closing the gap in a generation: health equity through action on the social determinants of health

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.2307%2F3343168.pdf

Development as Freedom

A doubling in global food demand projected for the next 50 years poses huge challenges for the sustainability both of food production and of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and the services they provide to society. Agriculturalists are the principal managers of global useable lands and will shape, perhaps irreversibly, the surface of the Earth in the coming decades. New incentives and policies for ensuring the sustainability of agriculture and ecosystem services will be crucial if we are to meet the demands of improving yields without compromising environmental integrity or public health.

/pdf/agricultural-sustainability-and-intensive-production-1h98l920tu.pdf

Agricultural sustainability and intensive production practices

We review in detail a number of approaches that have been adopted to try and explain the remarkable observation of our accelerating universe. In particular we discuss the arguments for and recent progress made towards understanding the nature of dark energy. We review the observational evidence for the current accelerated expansion of the universe and present a number of dark energy models in addition to the conventional cosmological constant, paying particular attention to scalar field models such as quintessence, K-essence, tachyon, phantom and dilatonic models. The importance of cosmological scaling solutions is emphasized when studying the dynamical system of scalar fields including coupled dark energy. We study the evolution of cosmological perturbations allowing us to confront them with the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background and Large Scale Structure and demonstrate how it is possible in principle to reconstruct the equation of state of dark energy by also using Supernovae Ia observational data. We also discuss in detail the nature of tracking solutions in cosmology, particle physics and braneworld models of dark energy, the nature of possible future singularities, the effect of higher order curvature terms to avoid a Big Rip singularity, and approaches to modifying gravity which leads to a late-time accelerated expansion without recourse to a new form of dark energy.

Dynamics of dark energy

The thawing quintessence model with a nearly flat potential provides a natural mechanism to produce an equation of state parameter, $w$, close to $\ensuremath{-}1$ today. We examine the behavior of such models for the case in which the potential satisfies the slow-roll conditions: $[(1/V)(dV/d\ensuremath{\phi}){]}^{2}\ensuremath{\ll}1$ and $(1/V)({d}^{2}V/d{\ensuremath{\phi}}^{2})\ensuremath{\ll}1$, and we derive the analog of the slow-roll approximation for the case in which both matter and a scalar field contribute to the density. We show that in this limit, all such models converge to a unique relation between $1+w$, ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{\ensuremath{\phi}}$, and the initial value of $(1/V)(dV/d\ensuremath{\phi})$. We derive this relation and use it to determine the corresponding expression for $w(a)$, which depends only on the presentday values for $w$ and ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{\ensuremath{\phi}}$. For a variety of potentials, our limiting expression for $w(a)$ is typically accurate to within $\ensuremath{\delta}w\ensuremath{\lesssim}0.005$ for $wl\ensuremath{-}0.9$. For redshift $z\ensuremath{\lesssim}1$, $w(a)$ is well fit by the Chevallier-Polarski-Linder parametrization, in which $w(a)$ is a linear function of $a$.

Thawing quintessence with a nearly flat potential

We use the most recent Type Ia supernova data in order to study the dark energy–dark matter (XCDM) unification approach in the context of the generalized Chaplygin gas (GCG) model. Rather surprisingly, we find that data allow models with α > 1. We have studied how the GCG adjusts flat and non-flat models, and our results show that GCG is consistent with a flat case up to 68 per cent confidence level. Actually this holds even if one relaxes the flat prior assumption. We have also analysed what one should expect from a future experiment such as the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP). We find that there is a degeneracy between the GCG model and an XCDM model with a phantom-like dark energy component.

Latest supernova data in the framework of the generalized Chaplygin gas model

L'A. souligne l'importance de l'evaluation des consequences pour la raison pratique. Face a la discipline qu'exige la responsabilite des choix, l'A. compare l'ethique consequentialiste a la deontologie independante de la consequence, d'une part, et definit les conditions d'incompletude et de maximisation de l'action, du droit et de l'obligation, d'autre part.

Consequential evaluation and practical reason

In preparation for the discussion that will arise from recent efforts to study the degree of consistency between economic growth and social concerns and between economic growth and sustainable development this paper that was prepared as background for the UNs "Human Development Report 1992" has been reissued. The simple but far-reaching thesis of this paper is that recognition of a shared claim of present and future generations to the basic capacity to lead worthwhile lives may be the link between human and social development. This theme is explored in four chapters. The first introduces the concept of universalism which is an elementary demand for impartiality applied within and between generations. Thus contemporary human development must be integrated with safeguards for future human development. Chapter 2 considers contrasts and convergence in development approaches that focus on human development or on overall wealth. The human development approach is described as embracing the universalist perspective and focusing on the capability to lead worthwhile lives. It is argued that application of this approach which calls for reproductive freedom would contribute to the solution of the population problem. The third chapter considers the environment and sustainable development in terms of intergenerational equity and sustainable development and intergenerational justice and human development. The final chapter looks at development and human agency in terms of institutions; markets and governance; values information and indicators; and the relationship between human capital and human development. This chapter ends with the warning that the development efforts must always regard the quality of human life as an end in itself and consider humans as persons not merely the means of production. An appendix applies a two-period model to a consideration of the relationship between optimal development and sustainable development.

Sustainable Human Development: Concepts and Priorities

L'A. soutient l'existence de plusieurs interpretations distinctes de la preference sociale dans la theorie du choix social, auxquelles correspondent plusieurs notions de liberte. Dans toutes ces interpretations l'impossibilite du paretien liberal c'est-a-dire d'un individu conciliant liberte individuelle et principe de Pareto est maintenue. L'A. montre egalement que la definition de la liberte en termes de controle est inadequate, et enfin que le conflit entre liberte individuelle et principe de Pareto s'exerce aussi dans la theorie du controle.

http://125.22.40.134:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/4493/1/Sen_1983_JOP.pdf

Amartya Sen

Papers

Thawing quintessence with a nearly flat potential

Latest supernova data in the framework of the generalized Chaplygin gas model

Consequential evaluation and practical reason

Sustainable Human Development: Concepts and Priorities

Liberty and Social Choice